Curved SUHD Televisions

As the 4K ultra HD TV market grows,
new standards and new design trends are starting to take firm root. One
of these, at least so far, has been a tendency towards TVs with a gentle
concave curvature to their screens. The big questions, which have also
spawned some debate among consumers, tech watchers like us at 4k.com and
manufacturers as well are whether curved TV designs are superior to
their flat screen counterparts, if they’re worth buying and in case
they’re worse or better, than by how much and in which ways?

Well, for those of you who have also been wondering about these
issues, you need not look any further. We’re about to cover all of the
essential arguments, issues, factors and technical aspects of curved TVs and their flat cousins to see which of the two types really is the better option and in which ways.

We’ll weigh the pros, cons and other assorted but important details
for you so that you can come out of this guide knowing without much
doubt what the deal is, all fluff and sales shtick aside.

Let’s get started.

Aesthetics & Wall Hanging

The first and most basic question to consider when it comes to buying
either a curved 4K TV or a flat model is one of aesthetics, ie: which
do you think looks nicer. While how something physically looks isn’t
always exactly the best measure of whether you should buy it
(functionality is always more important we think), when it comes to
products in which the difference in quality between one look and another
is debatable to some extent, looks have a fair place in your
assessment.

With that said, we personally believe that curved TVs do look
wonderful. Maybe they’ll be considered strange fads in a few years if
most home TV designs go back to their tried and true flat look but at
least right now, some of the most elegant looking 4K UHD models on the
market are indeed curved. Take for example LG’s OLED 4K TVs, the
original 2014 models and almost all of the new 2016 models of these
beautiful curved TVs, such as the highly acclaimed LG G6 are wonderfully thin and it’s hard to argue against how elegantly sleek they look.

To summarize this, while we can’t objectively argue whether curved or
flat looks lovelier in the home from an aesthetic point of view, two
very crucial points should be kept in mind:

First, that curvature usually means a slightly bulkier 4K TV screen
overall, due to a slightly thicker screen profile. This usually won’t be
a problem but it can cause some issues for those who want a truly
unobtrusive television profile in their home.

Second, that hanging curved 4K TVs on a wall is downright awkward.
Flat screen 4K UHD TVs are far more amenable to be hanged along any
vertical space, almost as if they were paintings or large photo frames
and when not in use, they do little to draw attention. This doesn’t
apply to curved models. Many of the older 2014 curved TVs lack even the
VESA setup for being mounted to a wall and while newer model do now have
wall-mounting capacity, they simply look strange when hanged up, and
stick out quite a bit.

Is the “Immersiveness” real? (Why size does matter)

This is perhaps the single most contentious and debatable argument
being used in favor of curved 4K televisions today, mainly because
immersiveness is the supposed characteristic of these TVs which has been
most used to justify their design and ultimately their price as well.

The basic argument states that due to their gently inward curving
screen, 4K models with this design offer a greater level of
immersiveness to the viewers sitting in front of them by slightly
expanding the perceptible quantity of screen space for their diagonal
size. Combined with their beautiful 4K UHD resolution and high contrast, this is supposed to create the effect of greater depth and immersion in general.

Unfortunately, while this is ever so slightly true in the very basic
sense that, for example, a 60 inch curved TV offers slightly more actual
screen space (if flattened out) than an already flat 60 inch TV, the difference is very slight. We’re talking here about maybe .8 to 1 inch of extra display real estate.

As a result of this small additional space, the field of view for a
curved 4K UHD TV vs. a flat screen TV is also only slightly smaller.
Field of view is the viewing degree for a person seated an average
distance of about 8 feet from the screen. In a curved 60 inch TV, the
FOV is only a fraction of a degree larger than that of a flat screen 60
inch TV at the same distance. We’re talking here about 29 degrees vs.
29.48 degrees, in other words, something you’d barely notice given the
extra price tag that a curved model sells for (more on that shortly).

In overall practical terms, the immersiveness which has been so
heavily vaunted about curved TVs is really not at all notable at the
sorts of screen sizes most normal home televisions come in. It’s that
simple. Yes, commercial theaters have been using curved screen spaces
for years to create greater depth and immersion for their audiences but
these are after all screens with sizes in the dozens of feet. For any 4K
TV in the average 40 to 65 inch range, that same slight curvature does
basically nothing and a curved 55, 60 inch or 65 inch TV screen looks no more immersive than its flat counterpart if the two are compared side by side at any normal viewing distance.

In very essential terms, curve only creates perceptible immersiveness
at sizes which go way beyond the bounds of normal home theater 4K TVs.

Viewing Angle

Now, while curve doesn’t measurably create greater immersion as we’ve
seen above, it can ruin viewing angles in certain ways. Unlike a curved
commercial theater screen, in which the entire audience easily fits
inside the ideal viewing angles of the screen’s gigantic curve, the
normal household 4K TV with curvature in the 55 to 70 inch range
effectively reduces the ideal viewing area in front of it to just 35
degrees off from center to either side.

In other words, the actual ideal viewing space and angles of a curved
TV can be smaller than what they would be for a flat TV! Anybody who
isn’t lucky enough to be sitting within less than 35 degrees to either
side of the front of the screen will actually end up being stuck with
observing slight foreshortening of the on-screen image. This can be
downright annoying and cause eye strain as the brain tries to compensate
for the distortion.

On the other hand, the bigger the curved 4K UHD TV, the larger its
ideal viewing area and in this category, the size of larger 4K TVs does
matter, with a 70 inch 4K UHD TV being the minimum
you’d need to avoid the potential eye strain caused by watching the TV
even just a little bit from off-center. Again though, even a 70 to 85
inch TV with curvature won’t create anything remotely resembling the
immersiveness that some claim for these televisions.

We should note that at slight off-center viewing angles, curved 4K
TVs can indeed create a slightly better dimensionality effect in the
picture they’re displaying but this is offset by the problems we have
described above. Furthermore, the one type of curved 4K TV in which curve least affects off-angle viewing would be LG’s OLED models.
In these TVs, off-angle viewing doesn’t lead to the sort of color
washout and contrast reduction found in LCD TVs. This is thanks to the
nature of their OLED display technology and it might be why curvature on
OLED 4K TVs tends to look somewhat nicer than it does on LCD TVs.
However even in these models, the curve doesn’t add any real benefit,
and it’s the OLED display which creates the real added value in their
display.

Distortion and Reflection

Reflection in either a curved or flat screen TV will be much more of
an effect created by the level of gloss in the screen instead of its
curvature. Glossier screens will normally reflect quite a bit in
brightly lit spaces while more matte TV screens wont. Furthermore, 4K
TVs with particularly good brightness, contrast and color vibrancy won’t
be affected by reflection as much as models in which these display
technologies are duller, regardless of whether they’re flat or curved. A
very good example of this is the picture quality on the flat screened
but absolutely superb Sony X940C and X930C 4K TVs.
That said, for whatever reflection there is in a curved TV, it will be
more stretched out than it would be in a flat screen TV due to
distortion from the curve. In other words, it will take up more of the
display space and block out slightly more of your view.

The best solutions for reflection in either flat or curved TVs lies
in positioning them as ideally as possible so there aren’t any bright
sources of light opposite the screen and to generally try watching your
TV under darker lighting conditions if possible, whether the model in
question is curved or not.

As for distortions other than those produced with light reflection,
there are viewers who report a sort of “bow-tie” effect when watching
certain types of content on a curved screen. In other words, the top
vertical bar of something like letterboxed content can look like it’s
stretching upwards along the edges of the TV, though this effect depends
largely on viewing angle. Viewing a curved 4K UHD TV from dead ahead
normally doesn’t produce any notable distortion.

Pros and Cons

To simplify your process of selecting a curved or flat 4K TV as much
as possible, we’re going to use this section to give you an overall
bullet-point breakdown of pros and cons, so you can quickly weigh in
favor of one or the other display design:

PROs

Slight (very slight) improvement in immersion: You
won’t get anything like theater quality immersion with a curved 4K TV
but that extra fraction of a degree and extra inch of screen real estate
we described above do technically add to the overall viewing experience

Depth is enhanced: On this front we definitely have
to give curved 4K TVs their due. The depth created by the curve and
particularly in larger 65 inch+ models with additional picture quality
technologies like OLED can indeed create something closer than normal to
a 3D viewing experience. Some brands like Samsung, which makes most of
the market’s curved 4K TVs, even add depth enhancement technology to
augment this 3D effect further by playing with contrast levels across
the screen.

Wider field of view: As we’d already mentioned, yes, the field of view is wider. The extra dimension is very slight but it is indeed there.

Superior contrast: Since most of the best 4K UHD TVs like LG’s OLED models and the top shelf Samsung SUHD TVs come with curvature,
the correlation is that curved TVs come with excellent contrast, but
this isn’t because of the curve, it’s because of the other technologies
most curved models also have in them.

They simply look cool: This is the point in favor
of curved TVs which we definitely won’t argue against. They may have
their flaws and be obtrusive if hung from a wall (for those which can be
mounted up at all) but these TVs undoubtedly do look cool. They’re
striking, they’re elegant and they’re sleek as hell.